This is a remarkably useful resource for planning dungeons or indeed any location or event when the party is likely to have an opportunity to loot the place. It consists of twenty-five separate lists, each comprising a complete hoard which may be found in one big heap or scattered throughout the area. To facilitate quick picking, they are listed on a table you can roll percentage dice against - or of course you can read through them and select the one that seems most appropriate for your needs. Two are tagged specifically as containing no magic items.

The individual lists follow. Each begins with the cash and then details items of value. In most cases some of them are magical. Many of the items fall into the category of portable works of art, there are also gemstones and complete pieces of jewellry. Each item's worth is listed, along with a suggested Intelligence DC check for being able to appraise its value (this also sometimes enables one to recognise what the item is as well).

Some of the items are more remarkable for their interest value: a child's alphabet book for example. One hoard belongs to someone who likes cooking - it includes a barrel of spices, a cooking pot and an hourglass. There are items of clothing, rings and more. The magical items tend to things like potions and scrolls. Everything seems pretty portable, facilitating easy pilfering.

This is just a neat way of ensuring that whenever the party stops to loot, there's something interesting for them to find. The way it's set up, you could refer to it mid-game if they want to search and steal in an unexpected place, too.

This, the first 'universe book' for Amazing Engine should be used in conjunction with the System Guide, the combination making a complete game.

It opens by describing the alternate history of the setting, a Victorian England where the fey do not only exist, they have seats in Parliament and are invited to all the best parties. This all dates back to Roman times if not before, but at that time the dark powers of the Unseelie Court were defeated in a great battle, and from then faerie blood has mixed with that of human beings throughout the history of Britain. Needless to say, the Unseelies haven't gone away, they've just gone underground, and still cause problems upon occasion although due to their appearance they have to recruit and operate through human allies and agents.

History has taken a largely similar track to the real world, although a descendant of Napoleon rules in France, a foil to Bismarck in Germany, and the big surprise, America is still a colony of Britain having been defeated in 1812 after their brief flirtation with independence. Fey live openly in Ireland, having an enclave named Tir Nan Og that operates as a separate country - or is that countries, as each sidh or barrow has its own British Embassy! Many challenges face the British Empire at this time. This opening portion, The State of England, is presented as a report suggesting the provision of 'special agents' to troubleshoot any problems... and this is where the player characters come in.

The role of both player characters and the GM are briefly touched upon and then the matter of creating player characters based on the existing player core (as detailed in the System Guide) is dealt with in detail. The first thing you have to determine is whether or not your character has fey blood - there's quite a high chance of having at least some, although full-blooded fey are quite rare. There are usually some visible hints of fey blood such as a greenish tint to the skin, pointy ears - or maybe hooves instead of feet. The more fey blood the character has, the more noticeable it is. Apart from full-blooded faeries, you next need to choose nationality. This determines where you come from and the language(s) you speak - apparently everyone from Wales speaks Welsh, which certainly wasn't the case in real Victorian England (in fact, the Welsh language was discouraged!). Next up in social class and occupation. These choices lead to background and to the skills available to that character. Naturally there is plenty of information to aid an informed decision. Much is (mostly) historically accurate, but magic exists and so sorcerer is an established profession.

Setting-specific notes on awards and experience follow material on wealth and resources. Many genuine Britsh awards and medals are listed here. Next up is magic. In this setting, magic works rather like a recipe, with a magic formular being constructed like a sentence including the action, the target, special conditions and so on. Each part has a range of options, this results in every spell cast having the potential, indeed likelihood, of being unique. The best spells are researched in advance, but they can be created on the fly although the chances of success are lower. A skill check is necessary every time a spell is cast, and it takes a physical toll on the caster. There are guidelines and examples aplenty, but spell-casting is something that the player will have to work at, there's no handy spell list to pick a spell from and just cast it as needed.

The next section, By All That is Holy, deals with religion. Faeries are pagan, it's somehow so deeply embedded in their being that they cannot embrace any other religion. There are various Christian denominations - based on real ones although with different names - and it is in their clergy that divine power is concentrated, although they do not cast spells as such but have certain powers that they can wield. No other faiths are mentioned, not is there any detail on what being a pagan entails.

This is followed by a section on Combat. Here we read about violence and the law, along with a note that combat is by and large deadly and ought to be avoided whenever possible. Much fighting is little more than brawling - mostly fistfights, perhaps a knife. Gun crime is rare, although a prudent fellow may take a pistol when entering a situation about which he is nervous. There's plenty of detail on both firearms and melee weapons.

We then turn to details about the fey, presented as Peak-Martin's Index of Faerie, a series of lectures to the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1877. It makes for fascinating reading, categorising the different varieties of fey folk and classifying them... and providing game statistics so that they can be used as opposition! For those who want to know more about the geography of the setting, there is also Crompton's Illustrated Tourbook of Great Britain, a quite comprehensive gazetteer. Back to everyday life, The Glorious British Life provides ample detail on what it's like to live in this setting: time, money, incomes, city and country life... and even how much you ought to be paying your servants! Modern conveniences, or the lack thereof, are discussed, along with price lists for the things characters may require and details of transportation - rail between towns, carriages or horseback within them, or out in the country once you have alighted from your train. The current state of knowledge and the policical scene are also covered, along with foreign relations and law enforcement. Much of this is historically-accurate, but with a distinctive spin on things to reflect the differences between this setting and historical Victorian England.

There's a rather entertaining guide on How to Speak Proper, which seems to be mainly aimed at Americans. This covers not just "the Queen's English" but Scottish and Irish dialects and a somewhat bizarre attempt at Welsh (which, it must be said, is my native tongue), claiming that Welsh words are unpronouncable... Best to move on to the underworld slang section. There's also a note about the role of women in Victorian times: strange to modern attitudes but historically accurate. Likewise, provision for the poor and disabled - mostly woefully inadequate by modern standards - charities and leisure pursuits are also covered. Various leading Victorians are introduced, perhaps the party will bump into them, or they will at least know about them.

The setting, then, is well presented with as much historical accuracy as the introduction of the faerie folk permits. Character creation is a bit clunky, but once you have built the characters and formed the party there's an impressive amount of background to set the scene in which they will operate. The GM, however, is left to come up with adventures. Some of the background might suggest ideas, but nothing is provided in the way of suggestion or plot idea, although the setting is good.

The book opens by trying to explain just what it is. Whilst it wasn't the first attempt at a generic ruleset, most people were publishing discrete games that included both rules and setting (or at least, genre) or they'd gone whole hog at the generic concept, put out some rules and left you to it. Amazing Engine was designed from the outset as a two-part system. You'd have the core rules (this book) and then you'd add the 'universe book' of your choice to make a complete game. These core rules contain all that's needed to create player characters and have those characters use skills, fight, and move. Hence, any character can be played in any universe, and experience from one can be applied to another.

The concepts of a 'player core' and a 'player character' are introduced to facilitate this. The idea is that this System Guide is used to create the player core, which is the framework from which player characters are built. The same player core is used from universe to universe. The player character is the actual collection of numbers, skills, and other abilities used to roleplay in a given universe. A player will have a different character in each universe, but these characters may all be generated from the same player core. It doesn't however mean that they're all the same character, just they share the core framework. That's fine if you like playing, say, sneaky and intelligent characters whatever sort of game you are playing... but may be a bit problematic if you prefer to fine-tune even the underlying nature of your character to the setting in which he will exist.

In the player core, you have to decide how much emphasis you want to put on four core aspects: physique, intellect, spirit and influence. Just how these are expressed will depend on the universe in which you will be playing. This is done by having two attributes associated with each aspect, and it is these, not the aspects, that are used to describe the player character - and can be quite different for each universe. You start by ranking the core aspects from 1 (the strongest) to 4 (the weakest). Then you begin in on your first player character by picking any four of the attributes - it doesn't matter which aspect they relate to at this point - and roll 4d10 and add them together to get a number. For the other four, roll 3d10. Then you add together the numbers for the two attributes belonging to each aspect - this becomes part of the player core and is used to create each subsequent player character (who are made slightly differently from the first one). It sounds a bit complex but the examples given and just getting some dice and playing around make it all come clear. As is often the case, rules really ought to be written by someone other than the person who created them - they understand how they work already and don't always explain them as well as someone who has had to learn them can!

Many other choices have to wait until you have decided on a universe in which to play. You cannot be an elf in a universe that doesn't have them, after all, nor can you wield magic unless you are in one where it works. Although your skills, too, will have to wait until you know about the universe you'll be playing in, the way tasks are resolved when you use them is standard, and is covered here - along with general notes on how they are chosen and so on. It's a slightly odd feeling trying to understand this in abstract, but again the examples are clear.

The next part of the book looks at experience: how to gain it (or award it if you're the GM) and what to do with it. This is when things get interesting - your player character's experience, gained in one universe, may be applied to your player core (and so benefit every player character you have across all the universes you play in... even though they are different people) or you may apply it to the player character who earned it. You also have the option of using them immediately to boost some ability temporarily as the situation dictates.

Other topics such as movement and the all-important combat are also covered here, again in fairly general terms. Whatever you are fighting with, the basics of how to resolve a hit are going to be the same, and the general overview of how combat works is constant. Finally, there's a note on magic, psionics and special powers. Mostly, it says that they are left to the universe books, which will determine what is possible there.

This isn't a game for shifting genres with the same character, yet it allows for some measure of continuity. That's particularly nice if you don't like starting from scratch every time you begin a new game in a different setting, or if you lose a character during play. More than that, it's a bit difficult to say - this is very much half of a game, I'll need to read a universe book to see how the whole hangs together... but that's a matter for another lunchtime! For now, this shows some promise.

A neat little adventure that can be slotted in to your campaign when the party are going about their own business (if their own plans don't take them to the right place, an errand for them is provided), with the opening being an encounter with a dog beset by bandits. Hopefully, like the Good Dogs they are, the party will come to his rescue.

The background provides an explanation about who that dog is and how he came to be there, and tells of who is after him and why. The main NPCs are introduced in detail, and then we're off with the various encounters and scenes explained clearly and vividly, everything laid out so that a novice GM should have little difficulty in running the adventure. Likely player choices - including those that might derail the adventure - are anticipated and dealt with in a way that brings things back on track without it appearing forced. There are at least two good brawls, probably three plus the excitement of finding buried treasure... and a few suggestions for further adventures.

Oh, and there are pirates involved! You never go far wrong with pirates...

Overall it is a nice straightforward adventure for an inexperienced party to get their teeth into. Any Good Dog ought to enjoy it!

This 'quickstart' introduction to Pugmire comes in three parts: a rules and setting overview, an adventure, and a collection of pre-generated characters. It opens by explaining the core concept of the game. In a distant future, human beings have vanished and the place has been taken over by anthropomorphic dogs. They live in the ruins of the world human beings have left behind, now having evolved to walk upright on their hind legs, talk, and have developed opposable thumbs so that they can manipulate items and wield weapons. Despite wearing clothes they are still furry, though!

Many dogs deify the long-lost human beings and are driven by the desire to be adjudged a 'Good Dog' by their peers. They scavenge amongst the ruins for the legendary material 'plastic' and attempt to learn to use the things that human beings left behind - even if they consider them to be magic rather than understanding the underlying technology. These are the player-characters of this world.

The first section moves on to discuss the rules. These are based closely on Dungeons & Dragons 5e, with the standard abilities (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma), with Skills and Tricks defining what each character is good at doing. Everything is explained in very basic terms, making this an excellent introductory game for children. Task resolution is by rolling a D20, adding apposite Skills and other bonuses and trying to exceed a target number. There's information about time in the game and about what happens when a fight breaks out, too; and the section ends with some notes on magic and spell use.

Next comes the adventure itself, The Secret of Vinsen's Tomb. This starts with a list of the primary NPCs, then there is a synopsis or overview of the entire adventure. Basically, the tomb in question is that of Vinsen Pug I, the very first king of Pugmire, and the plot concerns the retrieval (or looting if you prefer) of certain artefacts supposedly buried with him. It all starts with an assignment to find a cat who is an informant with criminal connections who has recently vanished. Where has she gone and what was she doing? Rumours hath it she was on the trail of ancient artefacts.

Once you have the information to get the party involved, the various scenes that can take place are laid out in detail. There are loads of helpful hints and tips for the first-time GM, too, so even if this is your first time it should flow smoothly. There's a clear plan of the tomb with atmospheric room descriptions coupled with notes on who is to be found there and what they are likely to do when the party wanders in. It all ends with a few ideas for further stories...

Finally, the pre-generated characters, complete with loads of background and even portraits to bring them to life. With a two-page character sheet, the entire package for each character runs to four pages. There are six of them in total, all nicely put together and - if you study the backgrounds - ready to work as a team.

Overall it makes a good introduction to the game, and should give you sufficient information and experience to be in a position to decide if Pugmire is for you and your group (or not). Presentation is to a high standard unless you use the PDF bookmarks, which start well in the first section but fail thereafter. The internal hyperlinks are a little hit and miss too. So, are you a Good Dog? Play this and find out!

Update: The bookmarking error has now been fixed (less than 24 hours after this review was posted) - Well done, Onyx Path!

If you are bewildered by the array of potential offered by I Love the Corps RPG and are not sure quite where to start, this work contain three full adventures jam-packed with science-fiction military action horror to keep your group busy for quite a while! They are distinctly different, so you might like to try them all to taste the scope of the game or pick the one closest to the sort of game that you and your group prefer, perhaps using that to start off your own campaign. Given the differences between them, each comes with pre-generated characters suited to the demands of the adventure in question.

The adventures involve Peacekeepers contending with dark forces behind organised riots, Intelligence Operatives investigating a mysterious lone city on an unexplored planet and a crack Black Ops team with no idea where they are. Each one highlights different aspects of the game from high action gorefests to low action investigation, but all provide opportunities for combat and more peaceful interaction and present moral ambiquities, gruelling decisions and a fair bit of mind-bending horror. Each one is made up of three chapters starting with Personnel Files, where you'll find the pre-generated characters and information on the squad and how they fit into the adventure, along with notes on how to utilise your own characters if preferred. Next, Command Directives gives an overview of the plot and how it might play out, along with ideas for further adventures should this one appeal. Finally, Field Report provides information on specific locations complete with maps, details of suitable hosile forces to drop in, and suggestions for how to utilise game mechanics.

The first adventure, Psychosis, involves Peacekeepers dealing with a riot and starts off by explaining where Peacekeepers fit in to the Marine tabloe of organisation. After detailed character sheets for the pre-gens, including notes on how they view each other and slightly disconcerting mugshots that show (I think) male and female versions of the same character simultaneously (they're composite left- and right-side different images), supposedly to allow the player to choose the gender of the character - given that the ruleset makes no distinctions, you can play male or female as you please - we get on to the mission itself, which involves a planet called Emerald that has only recently joined the Colonial Dominion, not - it is rumoured - by the choice of the citizens living there. There's plenty of background (some of which is not known to anyone except the GM) as well as an exposition of events and likely outcomes. There's quite a lot to take in but everything you'll need is there.

Next, the second adventure is Vultures. This time the squad is Military Intelligence, and this is a very psychological adventure with each pre-gen character having secrets of their own as well as the ones they've been sent to uncover. They have just finished their Military Intelligence training and this is to be their first mission: investigating a mysterious city on what is supposed to be an uninhabited planet that's beeing assessed for its suitability for colonisation. The adventure itself actually opens with those final training exercises to help you bring over the feeling of a squad that has trained long and hard together before they go into the field for real. All is revealed in the background notes, and boy, are the party in for a surprise!

The final adventure is Until The Last Bullet Flies involving a black ops squad so secret that even they themselves don't know how much of what they think they know and remember is true! This can lead to some startling personal discoveries during the course of the adventure. Indeed the entire mission is about perceptions of reality and it makes for a truly mind-bending experience. This is one of the times I hate reviewing, I'd have loved to have played this adventure, but now I've read it!

Any of the adventures can be run as a one-off, but most have scope for further adventures (the second one might be a bit problematic) if you like the situation and the characters provided. They give a good idea of the wide range of plotlines and campaigns that you can run with I Love the Corps as well as providing three exciting missions to run with your group.

This, the companion volume to the Marine Training Manual, provides a game master guide to complete the core rules for I Love the Corps. It provides guidance on putting your own spin on the setting (and deciding just why Earth was abandoned in 2200), advice on creating adventures and campaigns based on the squad your players have come up with, premade colonies and monsters/aliens, and rules for designing your own. Plenty to get your teeth into here.

The Introduction lays out the contents in more detail, beginning by talking about the effect the abandonment of Earth has had on the universe as a whole... a bit of a rant and definitely from the point of view of the Colonial Dominion and the more rabid members of the Colonial Marine Corps - you know the sort, maybe an eager young recruit who has swallowed everything he's been told uncritically and with no life experience to balance it, or the veteran pontificating over a beer in a veteran's club to an audience of like-minded souls. It then explains the purpose of the book and how it is made up of three sections covering various aspects of game mastering this game. And there's the obligatory 'Players Keep Out' notice, as if nobody ever both played AND GMed a game they enjoy!

First up is Section 1: Special Operations. This begins by pointing out that the first step in designing an adventure or a campaign is to determine a collective purpose for the party. If your players already have characters, what sort of things are they good at? Or you may decide that you want to run covert ops, deep beind enemy lines (or whatever) and so inform your players so that they can come up with suitable characters. It then runs through various suggestions for squad types and what sort of missions to send them on to get you thinking about the options. Ideas are far-ranging and even include non-Marine options - the residents of a space station, a gang of criminals or a group of mercenaries. Police/security or rebels are also options. As I read through, another one comes to mind: the media.

Whilst all these options suggest appropriate campaign themes, the discussion moves on to look at wider themes like conspiracy, corruption or attempts to answer questions such as Is humanity worth saving? Are aliens manipulating us? Are psychics a threat? Or perhaps this squad are soldiers not of the Colonial Dominion but of another national power. Propaganda. Experiements gone wrong. Pirates... or even a dark comedy. High action or gritty reality. Out-and-out horror survival. There are so many choices, so choose wisely. This moves on to discuss creating the right atmosphere by the way in which both Action Scenes and Narrative Scenes are played out. Maybe you want to induce paranoia or force the squad to make difficult decisions.

Then we get down to the rules and how to use them to best effect in creating the story you'd like to tell with your group. This also covers deciding how lethal (to player-characters) you want your adventures to be, delivering mission briefings, even running the squad through at least part of Boot Camp before the adventures proper begin! Within a campaign, will the squad travel the galaxy, or are they stuck on an unpromising lump of rock and have to defend it or merely survive?

Next, Section 2: Intelligence Report explores how the game is designed so that each GM can fine-tune the setting to suit the stories they want to tell. For a start, why did Humanity abandon Earth? That's up to you, but if you find that a scary proposition there is advice and guidance to help you decide on what happened in your universe. Even once that is decided, there is plenty more to figure out... like how much the average Colonial Dominion citizen knows about it. Dark secret, something uncomfortable that people just don't talk about, or just another historical fact? If they were driven off by an alien invasion, what happened to the aliens? Do they still pose a threat? As you can imagine thinking about these considerations raises a lot of questions which you are going to have to answer, preferably before your group starts asking them. Fortunately there are lots of ideas to pick through. Meteorites. Infections or mutations. Environmental destruction. A massive solar flare. If you choose one of the proffered options there are notes on how that will affect the rest of the setting.

The discussion moves on to how to describe the different environments in which the squad is likely to have to operate. Everything from orbital habitats to jungle villages are given a few paragraphs on which you can build. The next topic is the creation of entire colonies from scratch. There's a wealth of detail here to help you come up with varied, interesting and vivid colonies for your Marines to visit. This is basically world-building, you'll need to decide everything from what the planet is like to the people who live there and what they do and what the indigenous wildlife is like. Sample colonies and story ideas are provided to get you started. Finally, there's a lot about equipment, especially vehicles for air, sea, land, and space travel.

The final part, Section 3: Threat Assessment is all about creating opposition for your Marines (and allies as well, of course - not everyone they meet wants to kill them!). There's a huge amount here of how to set them up according to your needs - human combatants to monsters and aliens that will freak out the most grounded and balanced Marine. It's all constructed around the core ruleset, so a vast number of Aspects are provided to make truly horrific adversaries that work according to the same game mechanics as the Marines facing them. The names may be a bit silly at times, but the flavour is there to build opposition that's scary, unstoppable or whatever you want to make them be. Psychic abilities are included, of course, and there are notes on novel forms of armour and weapons - and other tech - that you can use to make aliens really... alien.

Overall, this book enables you to take the core rules and shake and bake them into a kick-ass game of military adventure in a science-fiction universe, with layers of horror that may be applied as you see fit. The amount of customisation that you can do to make your game really your own is awesome!

If you want to play a game that combines science fiction, military action and horror (but doesn't take itself TOO seriously, without being annoyingly comedic) this could be what you are looking for. This book is the player's handbook, so both GM and players need to be conversant with its content.

The Introduction begins with an overview of the current situation. It is now 2450 and Earth has been uninhabitable since 2200. Former colonies near and far flourish, some have joined the Colonial Dominion. These have contributed to the formation of the United Colonial Marine Corps, the military arm of the Colonial Dominion. Extraterrestial lifeforms are known to exist but only one alien sentient race is officially recognised as an ally. A brief explanation of what a role-playing game actually is follows.

The rest of the book is made up of three sections. The first, Mission Briefing, elaborates on the background and setting of the game. Next is Boot Camp, which runs through the character creation process and basic rules, and finally Rules of Engagement goes into much more detail about how to play including loads of hints and suggestions about how to play well, using your abilites to best effect.

Mission Briefing opens with the underlying concepts of the setting, on the grounds that to role-play a Colonial Marine well you need to sound like you are familiar with the universe in which your character lives. Different colonies take pride in different things, and many cling to vestiges of Earth culture even though their homeworld is long gone (the reason why being left to the GM, by the way). Some colonies refuse to join the Colonial Dominion, but they are regarded with suspicion at best if not classed outright as rebel scum. The Colonial Dominion is not a centralised government, but a federation of independents. We also hear about communications, space travel and various kinds of human modifications... and 'dupes' (mechanical humaniod duplicates, or androids). There are mecha pilots, psychics and sensitives, too.

Next this section covers everyday tech, the stuff most people know how to use even if they don't know how it works. Holoboards and holoterminals replace computers and telephones, artificial intelligences and artificial gravity, all these and many, many more. Space travel is also covered here, along with stasis pods and other devices.

Moving on, Boot Camp opens with an overview of the rules, so that you can make informed choices when creating your character. It begins while explaining that characters are defined by their Abilities, and that the game itself is made up of Action Scenes and Narrative Scenes. Each scene is made up of Beats - three for a Narrative Scene and as many as the GM sees fit for an Action Scene. In each Beat, a character may do two ability-related things. It sounds a bit mechanical, but it actually flows a lot better than it sounds on paper once the group gets used to it. There are two ways of using Abilities, Active and Passive. Active uses are resolved by rolling 1d6 and adding the relevant Ability statistic, Passive ones by adding +3 during a Narrative Scene or +1 during an Action one, and may only be attempted using an Ability that you've actually put points into. Either way, your total is matched against a Target Number (which can be an opponent's total if it's an opposed action - fighting, or untying a knot someone else tied, whatever) and if you exceed it you gain Success Levels, the more of these the better you do at whatever you were attempting. Of course, there are a whole bunch of modifiers and conditions that may be applied, but that's the core of the system.

Then we get down to the business of creating a character. There are eight Abilities and each covers a broad array of thematically-linked actions. The actions include just about everything you'd expect a soldier to be able to do, although the Ability names themselves are a bit silly - 'Drop and Give Me Fifty' is the Ability covering physical endurance and athleticism, for example. There are also Aspects, which can have various modifying effects, and help you hone a character to the particular image you have in mind. To decide your Ability stats and any Aspects you decide to have, you get twenty points to spend. Abilities range from 0 to 4. There's a huge amount of further detail to explain just what everything is and how it works in game, as well as an armoury-full of gear. Some is part of your standard load-out, other stuff you might need to pay for. There is an array of sample characters to either pick up and play or to use as templates for creating your own. Each is 'named' for the defining nature of that character, you will need to come up with your own name and background if you want to use them. There's more: ranks, physical and mental trauma - and if you like reading tables of horrible outcomes you are in for a treat - and more.

The final section, Rules of Engagement, gets into a lot more detail about how the game actually works in play, starting with social situations and how you can use apposite Abilities to navigate your way through them. Plenty of examples here and throughout, so by the time you've finished you should be conversant with all the things your character can do and how to use them to best effect during play. Want to search a location, or defuse that bomb you just found? This is where you find out how. There are plenty of ideas for combat here too, and you can even pick up some tactics ready for the battlefield. The aim of the game (apart perhaps for survival, but do you really want to live for ever, Marine?) is to achieve glory in some manner. When you do that you earn Glory Points, which are used to develop your character's abilities later on. That doesn't necessarily mean being super-courageous, although that certainly counts (and might earn you a medal as well), it can also be for advancing the plotline, coming up with good ideas or even making the GM laugh!

This book provides an extremely comprehensive introduction to the game and how to play it, essential for anyone wanting to play I Love The Corps... go on, you know you want to have a go at being a Marine!

The Introduction begins by letting you know what you are getting into (if it is a bit of a shock to be called a 'maggot' in the opening sentence, be glad you haven't really enlisted!). In this work, there's enough of an overview of the setting and rules to let you play through the scenario provided, and six pregenerated characters with which to do so. It's a good way to find out if you like this particular science-fiction action/horror game before parting with any money.

The setting is familiar to anyone who's watched the Alien movies, especially the second one (Aliens). Characters are members of the Colonial Marine Corps in the year 2450, in a future that saw Earth abandoned in 2200 (for reasons that are left to the GM to determine, but you don't need to worry about that now. Some of the former colonies have banded together to form the Colonial Dominion, of which the Colonial Marines are the military arm. The rest are rebel scum, of course! Only one lot of sentient aliens has been encountered so far, or at least that's what official reports say.

Then Chapter 1: Rules and Setting begins with a collection of terms and concepts, a ready-reference for Corps jargon and current technology, followed by 'Basic Rules and Regs' which summarises enough of the rules to let you play the game. It's all based around Abilities, of which there are eight. They've been given rather silly names but boil down to describing how smart, strong, tough, good with weapons and so on each character is. There are also Aspects, which put an individual spin on things for each character. He also needs a Gear Loadout, the equipment and weapons that enable him to survive.

There are two sorts of scenes: action scenes and narrative scenes. Narrative scenes are descriptive, often covering large periods of time, and there is little or no need for recourse to the game mechanics. Action scenes occur when danger is about, and can get fast and furious... and then it's time to get the dice out. Outcomes are determined by rolling a d6 and adding the appropriate Ability, with - of course - a range of modifiers as appropriate, and comparing what you get with a Target Number - which, if you are fighting, will be what your opponent rolled. Of course there's more: range, weapon effects and such like need to be taken into account. There are some summary charts and tables that come in handy when you actually start to play.

Next, Chapter 2: Personnel Files presents six ready-to-play Marines. As well as their statistics (which have notes about what they mean right there beside them, very useful), there are similarly-annotated gear lists and some background to help you get a feel for the character. Although they have been named, only a first initial has been given so you may choose whether the one you play is a bloke or a bird. Interestingly, all have led troubled lives and messed up somewhere along the line, and have now been drafted into a penal legion... beats gaol time, I suppose!

Finally, the adventure 'Trial by Fire' builds on the fact that all the characters have a criminal record. After basic training, the squad was shipped out in coldsleep for 'advanced training' - an automated facility where they, and others, will be tested. In essence it's a puzzle dungeon designed to test teamwork and reliability - something the Corps wants to know about this squad before sending them into REAL combat. The map is for the GM alone, 'cos it shows all the traps. And the nasty things that might be unleashed...

The system suits fast and furious action, and the GM is supplied with tracking sheets to keep on top of everything. The adventure itself is an artificial situation, but it's intended to be one... and the GM has considerable leeway as to how to use the resources provided against the squad. Keep things moving, this scenario isn't much of a one for character development and interaction: play it for what it is and have a blast!

With great power comes great responsibility, the saying goes. It's a bit different with chaositech. It confers great power, but carries a high price: that of losing part of your soul to the powers of chaos. There are surprisingly many who are ready to pay that price. It is neither technology nor magic, but a darker thing altogether: corruption and destruction given form. There's nothing quite like it (which is probably just as well!).

The Introduction explains all this and more. Chaositech comes in two varieties. One sort is an item that does a thing, often ornately carved to look organic, or even incorporating organic material along with metal, ceramics, glass or whatever. The other involves deep knowledge and manipulation of living organisms themselves. The consequences of using either form can include physical and mental changes in the individual, and the very forces of darkness that created chaositech in the first place can worm their way in. Most people regard it as being unstable and unreliable, as well as downright nasty... yet there are still those who would use it. The look and feel of chaositech is also... weird. Distorted. Form and function disjointed.

Chapter 1: Chaos covers all the underlying philosophy of chaos as well as dealing with those who worship it, the chaos cults and their priests. There's a bunch of new spells for those who want to bring a bit of chaos into their lives.

Then, Chapter 2: Bones of Steel explores the first variety of chaositech, the actual items that either look organic or incorporate organic material into their design. There are a vast number of items detailed ready for you to incorporate into your game. This is followed by Chapter 3: Betrayal of Flesh which looks at the other sort of chaositech where living organisms are altered or augmented. Here you learn how it is used to alter both body and mind.

Next, Chapter 4: Blessed Mutation looks at what happens when raw chaos has an effect on living creatures directly. Sometimes the results are even beneficial, sadly often they are not. The following chapter, Chapter 5: Chaos Slaves deals with those who want to use or worship chaos. Mechanically, it provides prestige classes and templates to describe this in game terms.

Finally Chapter 6: Masters of Chaos introduces the dark forces behing it all. Hopefully the party will never meet them...

Chaositech features in Monte Cook's epic setting, Ptolus: City by the Spire and if you are using that, you can enhance your game by adding this book to your collection. If you are not, you can use the information herein to add chaositech to your game world... if you dare. Use sparingly and keep it mainly for your NPCs, although you might have fun if one or two items from Chapter 2 turn up amongst the party's loot and they try to figure out what they are and how to use them. Unless your campaign - and your party - are particularly evil, it might be better not to let them have wholesale access. Chaositech ought to be something you try to stamp out, not something to be embraced. But it's your game. Use it as you please... or as you dare!

Ptolus: The City by the Spire has a thriving industry going - adventurers exploring the depths below the city. Not all of them come back. You can even get 'retrieval insurance' from the Delver's Guild, to have a team sent to rescue you. This adventure is the tale of one such rescue.

The Introduction explains enough about Ptolus for this to be run as a stand-alone adventure (of course, it's much enhanced if you DO have the setting!), and it can be set anywhere suitable in your own campaign world - it is a dungeon-delve after all, so it doesn't really matter what is above-ground. For those who do possess the Ptolus sourcebook and the Book of Experimental Might (whose variant magics appear here), this work is thoroughly cross-referenced to matters referred to therein, but enough is made clear so that if you don't have them you can run the adventure anyway (and stick to standard Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 magic if you prefer).

The adventure set-up is simple. Two youngsters whose father was a noted delver have inherited his adventuring gear and a fair bit of cash on his demise - so they hired a few henchmen and set off to try delving under Ptolus for themselves, armed with a commission to capture an exotic beast for a collector and fuelled by a determination to prove themselves every bit as good delvers as was their dear old dad. They've been missing for a couple of weeks, and their mother has appealed to a family friend, a wealthy noble, for help. This noble is in search of adventurers to send to find out what happened to the youngsters. Alternatively, you can have the Delver's Guild hire the party. Either way, they'll get an advance to purchase equipment and supplies and a little research time before they are pointed at the entrance the youngsters used and sent on their way.

Interestingly, there's an option to start the adventure in media res, that is, to start with the first dungeon encounter and then backtrack to explain just why they have just had a brawl with some dragonnes underground. While it may be fun to open a game session by calling for initiative rolls, I much prefer time to progress in a normal manner (unless, of course, time-warping magic is in play). Take your pick.

Three prologue encounters are provided as the party enter the dungeon, then we get on to the encounters proper - with a note that monsters do not sit at their assigned map positions just waiting on the offchance that a party might come by, they have lives of their own to lead and it just happens that they are there when the party enters... or if the party does something really unexpected, they might not be in position and you'll have to improvise! However there are lots of hints and tips to guide you in this, indeed all aspects of running the adventure, so don't panic.

It all makes for a good delve, well-constructed with 'monsters' who have reasons for being there, loads of interesting detail, and the opportunity for a successful party to find themselves quite well looked after when they return to the surface. If they're unsuccessful, well, did THEY have retrieval insurance?

In Ptolus, the Delver's Guild is an organisation that supports adventurers exploring the wonders underneath the city. Whatever your party likes to do in the city, they probably will have at least occasional dealings with the Guild. However, during the development of the Ptolus: City by the Spire sourcebook, The Delver's Guild was also a website where author Monte Cook shared a series of articles designed to fit into the city with those who were interested in the project. This work is a collection of those articles.

The Introduction: Welcome, Delvers covers the actual organisation in Ptolus. It describes their offices and the people the party are likely to meet there - there's even a picture of the sign over the door! The Guild offers membership at various levels, maps and other resources and even 'retrieval insurance' - they employ experienced delvers to rescue people who have got into trouble. Delvers seeking work can do a lot worse than sign up for a retrieval team, too. Throughout the book, everything's cross-referenced with the Ptolus: City by the Spire source book to make it even more useful.

Next, Chapter 1: Deities presents additional information about many of the deities originally listed in the main sourcebook and plenty of other ideas about religion that you may choose to incorporate into your game. Of course, if you've dropped Ptolus into your own campaign world, it's perfectly possible to substitute deities of your own for the Ptolus ones.

Moving on, Chapter 2: Locations provides even more descriptions of places to visit to add to the hundreds in the core book. They are all cross-referenced to make it easy to find where they are to be found in the city. Sketches, coats of arms, and all manner of other snippets help to bring them to life. A couple of halfling cabinetmakers with a hidden sideline in guiding people to secret places for a fee. There are generic shop layouts you can use for anything you need to add, a good boarding stables for adventurers from out of town to board their horses whilst they go delving, taverns and more - even a nice-sounding bar and restaurant catering to wizards! Ideas for adventures involving these locales are included.

Next comes Chapter 3: NPCs with a horde of new folk to populate the city and interact with the party (when not busy about their own affairs, of course). Each comes with statblock, background, often a sketch, and other information - perhaps where they live or work (thus adding another new location as well!). Some can be useful or just plain interesting to meet, others you might hope to never encounter.

Finally, Chapter 4: Tips, Tales and Treasures. Here we find new rules materials, new monsters, new spells... new anything that involves game mechanics. The author explains that everything presented here (and in the equivalent section of the Ptolus sourcebook) has been developed organically, as part of the setting. There are also adventure ideas, hints and tips on running games set in Ptolus. Languages, the city layout - it is NOT flat! - and much, much more. Random tables for stuff you find in various places from chests and bags to dungeon rooms. Treasures that are embedded into the city and its denizens, with coherent backstories that make them far more interesting than their monetary value.

If you like Ptolus, this is a treasure-trove to dip into again and again.

Billed as a 'mega-adventure' for four sixth-level characters (who will end up about tenth-level if they survive), this was published several years before the Ptolus: City by the Spire sourcebook came out, but was written for that setting, as it's author Monte Cook's home campaign setting anyway. There's a good summary introduction to Ptolus provided here. The underlying premise for the adventure is simple, and very appropriate to an urban setting: what happens if an ancient storehouse of evil artefacts and dangers is discovered near to a populated area? Who will try to access it, who will want it sealed up if not outright destroyed?

The adventure is both location and event based. The location is the repository of all these old evil artefacts, an underground complex in the best traditions of delving - but as well as the party, there are at least four disparate groups who are also taking an interest. The work is made up of chapters that are primarily different locations within the Banewarrens, but each has events linked to them (some in the outside world, some down there) which will take place once the party starts exploring that section. However the adventure is not linear, it's pretty much up to the party as to how they go about their exploring, so you have to use the mix of keyed encounters relating to specific locations on a map and event-based encounters that occur when and where you want to construct the overall adventure in a manner that suits your group.

The adventure starts with the party in the city. Events then happen around them, and they are soon sucked in, with a resultant job offer that provides what little background is known and sends them forth to discover more about the Banewarrens and, if possible, how to seal them up again. There's also another approach, from the local church: one of their paladins has been kidnapped and they want him found and recovered. These seem disparate at the time, but in fact both lead to the same place - so not to worry if the party is not interested in one of the jobs. There are even a few suggestions for dealing with a party disinclined to take up either opportunity. And then we're off... disappearing down a tunnel dug out from someone's wine cellar into the underground complex.

Everything is mapped out clearly, with linked descriptions and plenty of background information to help you bring it all to life. There are even a series of illustrations to show the players at certain points. It's not a continuous dungeon crawl however, at various points - or indeed whenever they want to - the party can come back out of the complex to visit the city for supplies, rest, healing, to consult with employers or to gain information... or even, I suppose, if they feel they've done enough for the day and want to go for a drink! Moreover, the plot actually requires some time spent in the city to follow up on things discovered underground, which takes this beying a pure 'dungeon-delve' although that mode of adventuring is a major part of it.

Even as a delve, this is a good one. It's a good meaningful dungeon, with everything where it is for a reason, building up to a coherent whole. Nothing is there 'just' to give the party a fight or some loot, everything furthers the plot. Likewise, the bits that take the party into the city are also fully integrated into the storyline. With a spot of planar travel thrown in, a series of actions to seal up the complex again (if that's what the party decide to do), and scope for follow-up adventures this is certainly worth a look, particularly if your group likes the more intelligent sort of dungeon delve that goes beyond killing all the monsters and stealing their stuff.

This adventure, designed to be run in the Ptolus: City by the Spire campaign setting, tells the tale of one of the darkest nights in the city's history, and lands the party right in the thick of the action. There's something for everyone here with investigation, intrigue, action and dungeon exploration all playing their part. It's suggested characters should be at fourth level when they begin, they'll likely reach ninth level if they survive until the end. Hence it makes a good follow-on from the Adventures that come in the Ptolus sourcebook or as a separate PDF, as they take characters from first to fourth level.

Herein there are six linked scenarios, which can be run as a continuous adventure or separately, as best suits your needs. If you intend to use it, some foreshadowing is in order which is outlined in the Introduction. There are also notes of how to interweave events in this plotline with another adventure, The Banewarrens, if you want to create something spectacular by combining the two. For even more complex overlapping adventures, there are other plot hooks within the Ptolus sourcebook that are suggested. Finally, the Introduction addresses a potential pitfall: in finding information about shady goings-on which ought to lead the party to the next stage in the adventure, they might just trundle round to the authorities and hand it over for investigation. The solution is simple: deputise them!

It all begins when the party find a locked magical chest and need to find a key... Several different ways in which they just happen to acquire the chest are given here, any of which can be slotted fairly seamlessly into whatever they are up to at the time. However they end up possessing it, no doubt they will then want to find out what's inside. Inquiries lead to a minor artefact that might do the trick, which is believed to be located in a disused brothel. This is the location of the first part of the adventure.

Events pile upon events. As an investigation-based adventure, it is somewhat linear - although this can be alleviated by the interleaving spoken of earlier - but there is an internal logic that drives the adventure forwards provided the party has got interested enough to want to find the answer to what's going on... once they find out, they're going to want to stop it as it will make things far, far worse for the whole city and as they live there they should have a vested interest! Subsequent adventures include rescuing a young admirer from the clutches of a sinister cult... only to find that he's disappeared and needs rescuing! Once that is accomplished, rumours of dark deeds practised by evil cultists come to light, investigating these leads to an underground temple to clean out and news of another threat to eliminate, and so on to the climax - but it's clear where you can break off to do something else, and even add in reinforcing information if the party isn't paying attention or showing any inclination to engage with the next stage of the plot.

Good maps and room descriptions are suppied along with fully-detailed NPCs and monsters for encounters, and there are clear cross-references to matters touched upon in the Ptolus sourcebook (or, if you've collected your copy that way, to the series of PDFs that cover the content). There are also marginal notes to aid you as a DM to deliver this adventure to best effect and even comments about things that happened in Monte Cook's own campaign upon which all of this is based. It all ends in a pitch of high excitement, with barbarian invaders outside the walls and an evil ritual set to destroy the world being enacted inside... epic stuff, cinematic and giving the party a real feeling of having saved the world... there's even the possibility of sending the barbarians home without bloodshed. The party will be the talk of the town and richly rewarded as well, a fitting end to a memorable adventure.

They call Ptolus 'The City by the Spire' but just what is this Spire? This book, firmly reserved for DMs only, spills the beans. What everyone knows is that it's the most foul and evil place in the entire world of Praemal (if you've located Ptolus in your own campaign world, there may be nastier places, but it is quite unlikely!). This work is to be found in the main Ptolus sourcebook as well as a part of the series of Ptolus PDFs that have been released separately, and is cross-referenced for both for ease of use.

The Spire is home to two fortresses. At least I suppose that's the best term for them. They might be lairs. Or the sort of strongholds a Bond villain might have if he lived in a fantasy world. One is Goth Gulgamel or the 'Castle of Darkness'. It is a place of evil and rather a lot of power, and is rumoured to contain evils so ancient that nobody remembers them any more. The other is Jabel Shammar, right at the top of the Spire, and it's plain nasty... and strangely, is even older than the Spire itself! For each, there's loads of background telling how it came to be and who's there now, and atmospheric material to help you get a feel of what it's like for those crazy or brave (or both) enough to visit... if they can. Apparently you can climb the Spire and will find that the doors of Goth Gulgamel are actually unlocked. However, nobody who did that has ever come back.

Both locations are mapped and described in detail, along with their denizens. There are many 'DM tips' pointing out game mechanics that are applicable and other hints for running any visit to best effect. There is immense power here, most of it malignant (especially for good-aligned folk), quite mind-warping and corrupting if you are not careful. It recommended that Jabel Shammar is used as the ultimate climax to a campaign... for a start, a party needs to be very high level to even contimplate going there. The very forces of evil operate here in vile forms. Don't even think about trying to clean it out - even the Gods themselves could do no more than sequester it from the world, containing the evil within. There are things that can be done by a party powerful and determined enough, however... if they survive.

Make no bones about it, these are two tough dungeons to visit, and it will take powerful, high-level parties to survive. Yet for truly epic and climatic scenes, that's precisely what you need.